


More Than You Bargained For

by colfield



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex knows about aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fic amnesty, M/M, is it still a fake dating au if only one of you knows it's fake?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 19:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colfield/pseuds/colfield
Summary: This is probably not, Alex thinks hazily, what Jesse Manes had in mind when he told me to get close to him.





	More Than You Bargained For

**Author's Note:**

> I am amnestying this fic for now. I really enjoyed writing it, but I've lost the inspiration for it at the moment. Hopefully posting this will help me get back into finishing it. Any/all feedback would be appreciated in reviving my spark for this story.
> 
> Title from Sugar, We're Going Down by Fall Out Boy.

Alex Manes knows three things about Michael Guerin: he’s too smart for his own good; he jumped around foster homes before coming to Roswell; and, apparently, he’s an alien.

Alex taps his thumb against his bottom lip, clocking Michael’s movements across their old school gym. He looks good, is the thing. A bit more filled out, a bit rougher around the edges than the scrawny kid who used to steal his guitar and keep extra clothes in his locker.

Michael has been bouncing around the gym all night, cheeks flushed, doling out winks and grins as if he were friends with any of these people. But Alex remembers. Michael talked to exactly two people in high school; Max and Isobel Evans, only one half of which seems to be present tonight.

He lets Michael catch him looking, drags his gaze, heavy and full of intent, down his legs before bashfully ducking his head away. Spending the last ten years in the Air Force, a significant portion of that under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Alex has learned how to identify an interested party.

Michael has not-so-subtly been watching Alex back all night. He’s interested.

He smiles into the lip of his beer as Michael moves in his peripheral. Definitely interested.

“Alex Manes,” Michael says, leaning across the table Alex has been occupying for most of the night. Michael drums his fingers against the wood top. He’s in a threadbare dark t-shirt, and the neckline pulls down enough to glimpse his prominent collarbones. Michael’s eyes are bright in the dark, and his tongue runs a line across his bottom teeth, lips curling up into something bold and expectant. “Haven’t seen you since high school.”

“That’s the point of reunions, usually.” Alex murmurs. He keeps his voice low so Michael has to lean further over the table to hear him.

“Heard you jumped on the first flight outta here.”

“Something like that.”

Michael hums. He’s watching the way Alex tilts his beer back, keeping his neck long and inviting. The lights are low, casting an intimate glow over the reunion. It’s easy to feel secluded like this, tucked into a corner away from the band and dancing and crush of old friends catching up.

“So why’re you hiding out here with me, instead of soaking up the attention?” Michael’s eyes flick down to his lips. “Rumor is, you’re a hero.”

“Half the people here just want to ask me about what it was like, over there.” Alex tilts his grin sardonic. “The other half are avoiding me.” He knocks the end of his crutch against his ankle, the one made of metal and plastic.

Michael pulls away, his palms slipping over the table and back into his own space. Alex reaches out, lightning quick, grabbing Michael’s left wrist, pinning it in place. His fingers are cold, damp from his beer, as he wraps them around the delicate bones under Michael’s skin.

“Stay.” He orders, pitching his voice deeper. Michael’s breath shudders out, but he curls in closer, shoulders folding inwards.

Alex turns Michael’s hand over so it’s resting face up in his own palm, his grip ice and vice-tight to keep Michael in place. “You’re not treating me like I’m fragile.” He adds a self-deprecating eyeroll to lighten the words. Michael narrows his eyes, gaze considering as it jumps across Alex’s face.

Michael’s grin is sharp against the dim blue lights. “Something tells me there’s nothing fragile about you, Alex Manes.”

It’s fun, Alex realizes with a start, standing here and flirting with Michael, someone who knows Alex in only the vaguest sense. He can be anyone right now. He can trade thinly veiled come-ons, no heavy weight of duty hanging over him, no promises of anything more than right here, right now, letting the electric charge of attraction guide them.

It’s dangerous. Because Michael can’t just be a fun one night stand to leave behind with his final memories of high school.

Michael is his mission.

“What about you?” Alex tries to steer the conversation back to safer terrority. Belatedly, he realizes he’s still gripping Michael’s wrist. He releases, withdrawing to his side of the table again.

Michael flexes his hand. “Oh, y’know. Just couldn’t bear to leave good ol’ Roswell.”

There’s something there, in his tone, something that turns bitter and resentful, though Michael hides it under the sarcastic lilt to his tone. His training has him honing in immediately. He wants to press that bruise and see where it leads.

“Weren’t you some super genius though? Figured you’d be off to an Ivy League.”

Michael’s face shifts to suspicion, closing himself off. “Was high school just so fun for you, you can’t resist reliving it?” It’s mean enough to jarr Alex back to who he is dealing with, a clear warning to back off.

“Fair enough.” He keeps his voice light, his shoulders relaxed. Michael is radiating tension now, and Alex has to hope he hasn’t screwed this up beyond repair in one conversation. “You wanna grab a drink?”

Michael smirks at him, amused, though still not quite as open as he was a few minutes ago. “There are drinks here, Alex.”

“Some time this week.” Alex shrugs. Plays up the nerves a bit. If it leads Michael to think he’s asking for a date, well, he won’t correct him as long as he agrees. “I’m gonna be in town for a while. It might be nice to have something to look forward to.”

“Sure.” Michael agrees, easy as anything, but his smile promises trouble.

-

He doesn’t see Michael again for a few days. He can’t appear to be overeager, or to push him too much, not if reacts the way he did at the reunion.

They never agreed on a day to meet up, but Alex’s sources confirm that Michael frequents the Wild Pony weekly, so it’s only a matter of making himself available, and noticeable, and waiting for Michael to find him.

It doesn’t take long, all said. He’s starting on his third beer by the time Michael saunters in.

Michael must see him immediately, but he doesn’t come over right away.

Alex has strategically placed himself at a corner of the bar so that he can keep the door in his line of sight without making it obvious that he’s watching. He laid his crutch over the two barstools to his left, ensuring that no one will sit near him.

It’s crowded tonight, and loud, and people have been pushing towards the bar since he arrived, but no one has been brave enough to ask the cripple to move his crutch. It’s what he was counting on.

The fear of offending has allowed him to get away with so much more than he could’ve before.

The band tonight is awful, Racist Hank crooning offkey about lost love while his buddies butcher their instruments behind him. Alex winces around a particularly terrible note. This atmosphere is not exactly conducive to a conversation.

He keeps telling himself that that’s all this is. A friendly conversation over drinks. Two dudes getting to know each other.

He’s never been great at lying to himself.

“Wouldn’t have pegged this as your scene.” Michael says, leaning across the bar two stools down from him. He’s not shy about reaching over and grabbing a bottle from the well while Maria’s back is turned.

“I don’t think you can just take those,” Alex says, and Michael just winks at him, taking a long pull straight from the bottle. He shouldn’t be turned on by the flagrant disregard of health code laws or the way Michael’s throat works as he swallows the cheap whiskey. And, _yet_.

Alex had moved his crutch from the stool when Michael showed up, and Michael slides backwards onto the stool furthest from him, leaving a hollow, empty space between.

“Couldn’t resist the local talent.” Alex picks up the thread of Michael’s unasked question, nodding at where Racist Hank and Racist Wyatt are attempting to have a riff off on their untuned guitars.

Michael grimaces, resting his arms against the bar, his body a lean, blatant temptation, bottle dangling carelessly from his fingers. He rolls his head across his shoulders, shooting Alex a look. Michael’s got his full bottom lip caught under his front teeth, and his eyes are clear with intention.

Alex very impressively doesn’t choke on his beer, but he does dig his knuckles into his upper thigh, _hard_.

Five minutes.

Michael’s been in this bar for a full five minutes and has already managed to completely derail Alex’s objectives.

_This is probably not,_ Alex thinks hazily, _what Jesse Manes had in mind when he told me to get close to him_. He shoves Michael into the wall by the bathrooms, mouth hot and desperate against his own.

This is a terrible idea. Alex knows this, deep in his bones, but it doesn’t stop him from getting his hand in those damned curls and tugging, hard, to trap Michael fully between the wall and his body. They shouldn’t be doing this at all, let alone in clear view of anyone who may stumble back here to the bathrooms. And given how full the bar is tonight, that could happen any minute.

Michael is feverish where he presses against his skin, and he’s whining these breathy little moans that are twisting Alex’s stomach. His hands are everywhere, on Alex’s face, his neck, in his hair for a moment before reaching down to pull his hips flush. It’s disorienting. He kisses the way Alex would’ve guessed, a reckless, frenzied, fatal kiss that has Alex’s knees shaking. His stubble burns, and his mouth tastes like whiskey, and Alex is losing his mind.

“We should,” He finally forces himself to say, mouthing the words into the skin under Michael’s jaw.

“Yours?” Michael asks, quickly. He’s breathing hard, chest heaving under Alex’s palm.

“No.” Alex shakes his head quickly. Michael face falls for a moment, and Alex rushes in to press a kiss against the corner of that frown. “Not that I don’t want to. But I meant it when I said I wanted to get a drink with you.” He rubs his thumb across the high arch of Michael’s cheek, the other still buried in his hair. _Mission_ rings loud in his head. That’s all this is. “I want to get to know you.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing,” Michael’s face loosens, his brows going up slightly and his tongue poking out. He presses his hips forward.

“I don’t sleep with guys on the first date.” Alex says, without thinking. He freezes.

Instead of scaring him off like he did at the reunion, Michael sags into Alex’s arms, a timid sort of happiness around his eyes.

“That what this is?”

“If that’s what you want,” Alex shrugs, instead of doing any of the sensible things, like taking it back, or fucking rewinding time to stop any of this from happening.

“Alright,” Michael mutters. He pushes Alex back, nodding his head towards the bar. “Better get back to it, huh?”

Their previous place at the bar is overrun with eager drunks, and Maria has reclaimed the bottle Michael had pilfered, so Alex buys him a double shot on the rocks while Michael secures a booth for them. Thankfully, the Racist Twins have lost interest in playing for the night, and Maria’s got the usual bar rock playlist going instead.

“So, I’m on a date with Alex Manes?” Michael says and Alex deposits the drink in front of him and slides into the opposite bench.

“And I’m on a date with Michael Guerin?” Alex repeats, not following.

Michael chuckles darkly into his drink. “Seventeen year old me would be creaming his pants right now.”

Alex swallows hard, twice, fingers tightening around the bottle of his beer. “You never said.”

“Yeah,” Michael shrugs, a careless, full body thing. “Don’t think I knew what that feeling was, back then. I was a dumb kid.”

Alex blows out a rough breath. There’s a lot of emotions stirring in him at Michael’s quiet, self-conscious confession. He’s suddenly, inexplicably, fond and pleased, but it’s all tinged with a deep bitterness, and a healthy dose of contempt for the lies he’s spinning. This wasn’t who he pictured becoming when he joined the Air Force.

“Me too,” Alex admits. “I thought I was going to be a musician.” He laughs, shaking his head at the naive teen he once was.

“Yeah,” Michael grins, leaning his forearms on the table, bridging the gap between them like he’s tend to do. “I remember I used to steal your guitar to try and get your attention.”

They both laugh at that, and the rest of the night their conversation flows freely. Michael flirts like it’s breathing, but he’s got a surprising bite to his words, and volleys barbs at Alex readily. Alex is again shocked at how fun, how comfortable it feels like this with Michael.

His father is wrong. He’s wrong about a lot of things, so it’s not surprising that he’s misguided about Michael as well. Alex had him under his hands. He’s sitting across him from, laughing as Michael teases him affectionately, pressing his knee against Alex’s own, right above the incision line where the doctor had to cut away his burned flesh.

Michael is human. He’s not a murderous alien leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

They close down the bar. He pointedly ignores the prying looks Maria has been sending him all night as he follows Michael outside, where the air has gone cold enough to have them both tucking into their coats.

“So, what are my chances of getting a second date?” Michael asks. His voice has gone sweet with the drinks they’ve shared. Alex grins as Michael curls his fingers into his jacket lapels to pull him into one more deep kiss.

“Pretty good, I’d say. You sure you’re okay to drive?” He touches the pad of his forefinger to the space between Michael’s brows.

“Yes, Mother.”

He laughs, and turns to his own car, leaving Michael standing in the darkening parking lot, getting smaller in his rearview. He lets the good feeling carry him on a twisting path back to his childhood house, detouring through Main St and letting the cold slap of night air through the open windows sober him up. He stumbles through the front door in the dark, wincing as a chair catches him in his remaining shin.

The kitchen is lit up. He sighs, loud enough for the sound to reach his father, and follows it into the light.

Jesse has a mostly empty bottle of bourbon sitting next to an open police file. Alex glances away from the faces of the murdered women and men. Before he can announce how wrong his father is, about aliens, about Michael, about _everything_, Jesse speaks.

“There was another murder at the Wild Pony tonight.”

Alex’s legs go out from under him. He’s lucky, for once, for his crutch keeps him from going down hard, and he grabs at the table to steady himself.

“I was there.” He shakes his head. “I would’ve seen.”

“I just got the call.” Jesse’s voice is cold, and his eyes bore into Alex like he knows exactly what he was getting up to at the bar. Maybe he does. Alex had never been able to keep things from him as a kid - he wouldn’t be surprised if he has spies all over this town. “Body was still warm when they found her. Couldn’t have been dead more than twenty, thirty minutes.”

About the time Alex left the Wild Pony.

“You’d best be careful with that Guerin boy.” Jesse slurs. Alex nods, numbly, ears ringing as he forces air out through his nose to a count of ten, like his therapist taught him.

It takes a long time for him to fall asleep that night, mind replaying Michael’s laugh on an endless loop.

-

Alex has never had a healthy relationship with his father. It comes with the territory of being the rebellious gay son of a power-hungry homophobic father.

At seventeen, Alex would’ve done just about anything to piss off and/or humiliate his father. He had plans, big ones, of skipping town and catching a ride to New York or LA or anywhere, so long as it wasn’t Roswell, New Mexico. He was going to make music. He was going to find other people like him, gay, and a little angry, but proud and out, ready to tell the rest of the world to fuck off if they didn’t like it. He was going to find his own family, and he was going to hold his boyfriend’s hand in public.

He ended up joining the Air Force.

It was a ticket out of Roswell, at the very least, and it came with the added bonus of his father having to grin and bear it while his military buddies clapped Alex’s shoulders in macho aggrandizing, grunting congratulations to him on ‘joining the family legacy’.

Three tours in Iraq, two Air Medals, one dismembered leg later, and Alex is finally introduced to the real Manes family legacy.

It’s a legacy he never asked for, doesn’t want anything to do with, but he’s drawn in by the careful, meticulous way his father spreads the facts before him and the way he says, serious, “I need you, Alex.”

All this time, and those words still have the child in him standing to attention. He hates that most of all.

There isn’t enough evidence to prove without a reasonable doubt that Michael is the killer. He’s the only lead Jesse has though, and the coincidences are piling up too high to ignore, but Jesse needs more before he can do anything about it.

Alex has to get closer. Get inside Michael’s home, gain his trust, get him to open up. He can’t let Michael know he suspects anything.

He needs to do all that and keep his own emotions in check.

-

He doesn’t wait to see Michael again this time. He tracks him to Sanders’ Junk Yard, where he’s unpacking the rust bucket he calls a truck.

Alex knows he had been sleeping over at Fosters Ranch for these past years. He also knows Project Shepherd had a hand in getting him kicked off that land. “We found evidence of phenyl-2-propanone at the Ranch.” His father had warned before he left that morning. “We don’t know what he’s doing with it. Find out.”

“You stalking me, Manes?” Michael asks, his back to Alex, smirking over his shoulder when Alex approaches. His eyes glint in the sun, the muscles shifting under a thin white shirt as he reaches for something. Alex looks away, towards the open door of the Airstream, biting his tongue.

“We should probably talk.” He forces himself to say around a sigh.

Michael drops a heavy sounding box by his feet, stretching with a soft grunt. “Sounds ominous.” He’s watching Alex, mouth soft and open, a flash of pink, like he’s turning something over inside. “I’d invite you in, but.” He gestures to the mess of objects surrounding them.

Alex nods, eyes jumping over the few unlabeled boxes, mind rushing to filter through what they could contain. There aren’t many; Michael’s entire life reduced to a few flimsy boxes and whatever fits inside his Airstream. It’d be pretty hard to hide the kind of chemicals Alex is looking for in these boxes.

He is struck then - Michael doesn’t have anyone. He’d been a kid in the system as far back as their records indicate. There are no known relatives, no one to come forward and offer information on who he is or where he came from. Even his name - _Michael Guerin_ \- was something he got from the first foster family that took him in.

Everything he has, he’s had to scrounge and scrap together on his own. Alex wouldn’t wish his childhood on his worst enemy, but at least he had a home, a family, a history. For what little it all meant in the end, he never had to doubt where he came from.

But that all means Michael has nothing to lose.

“Need help unpacking?” Alex steps toward the Airstream’s door, but Michael moves into his space, subtly blocking the path. He doesn’t hesitate to touch Alex, tugging at the collar of his button up.

“You came here to,” he licks his lips, eyes going down to Alex’s mouth, “talk?”

“You know I’m still active in the Air Force, right?”

Michael’s hand drops away, expression twisting away from charged flirting into one that screams obstinance. It’s a face that Alex is intimately familiar with. “Yup.”

“I need you to be honest with me.” He inflicts his words with sincerity, catching Michael’s gaze and holding it for a long beat. “What were you doing out at Fosters Ranch?” Michael shakes his head, evading Alex’s eyes. “Don’t lie and say it was nothing. I saw the charts. There was trace evidence of at least eight illegal substances.”

Michael huffs out a rueful laugh. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” Alex scoffs.

“It’s not illegal.” Michael mumbles. He finally meets Alex’s eyes again, reaching out to press his palm just under Alex’s shoulder. Not pushing him away, not pulling him closer, simply resting there. “Alex, I’m asking you to trust me on this. I can’t tell you. Not right now.”

It’s the in Alex has been waiting for. Every cell in Alex’s body is telling him not to trust Michael, to get as far away from this mess as possible. This is more than a recon mission. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, it’s clearly dangerous.

Murderous alien dangerous.

Then there’s way Michael is looking at him. There is no hiding in his eyes. Unguarded, exposed, as if Alex’s trust is something precious, something to be kept safe.

“Okay.” Alex swallows around the guilt forming at the back of his throat. “I trust you.”

Michael’s smile doesn’t change his expression; it tilts into something lighter, but still vulnerable. He kisses Alex, then, one hand coming up to gently cup his jaw.

This kiss is different from the ones the night before, soaked in alcohol and the weight of their attraction. This is kiss is the lightest press of lips, a _thank you_, Michael touching him gentle and honest.

He’s gone before Alex can press into him and deepen the kiss until the thoughts threatening to overrun him go silent.

_We are going to ruin each other._

-

As much as he pushes, Michael doesn’t let him stay to unpack his things. He stays firm on that, none-too-gently directing Alex back to his SUV.

Alex can feel a headache forming as he squints against the afternoon sun. He’s avoiding his father, dreading the inevitable “Manes men don’t fail” speech that he could recite in his sleep by this point.

Small white pills rattle inside the orange bottle Alex stores in his glove compartment. It’s not the safest place to keep them, not in a town like Roswell, but he doesn’t like looking at the bottle in his bathroom cabinet.

Alex drags his thumb across the bolded prescription. He’d never taken them, not even during the first awful weeks as he adjusted to his ‘new normal’. Pain pills have always made him fuzzy and careless, and he has what his therapist describes as control issues. Still, he keeps them as a safety net, knowing that he could slip away from the pain it ever got too much.

He sighs, dropping the pill bottle back into the compartment, and rubbing his temples with as much pressure as he can stand.

He might as well get this over with.

Master Sergeant Jesse Manes may be a decorated and respected Airforce Man in his community, but he’s still a baby boomer. His super secret bunker full of alien conspiracies looks like something out of a B-movie. Alex kicks the shrubbery away and pressed the code into the keypad, waiting for the click of the lock to release.

He doesn’t get far inside before he hears the voices.

“_Kyle_?”

Kyle Valenti spins in place, shock thinning the angles of his face. “Alex,” He sputters, taking three quick steps away from Jesse Manes.

Alex ignores him, sending his father a pointed look. “You bringing civilians into this now?”

“Protecting Roswell has always fallen on the shoulders of our families.” Jesse says, his voice that clipped, neutral tone that Alex knows means he’s pissed. At him, or Kyle, he doesn’t know yet. “Kyle is as much as part of this as you are.”

“You knew?” Kyle asks. “How long?”

Alex sighs, stepping in line with the other two. Images he’s burned into his memory are flickering over the screens. “Couple of weeks.”

“We might be dealing with the possibility of more than one alien in Roswell.” Jesse interrupts. “I need you both on top of this. Report back anything suspicious to me, immediately.”

Alex’s head throbs a deeper beat against his temples.

Jesse sends him and Kyle away shortly after that. He’s never been very forthcoming with plans, and he shares only scraps of information. There’s something he’s purposefully not telling them. Alex plans to figure out what that is.

Kyle grabs his arm the moment they’re out of Jesse Manes’ sight.

“Alex, what the fuck.” He breathes the words out in a rush, emphasizing it by tightening his fingers around Alex’s bicep. Alex winces, shaking his hold off.

“We can’t talk here.” He mutters, gesturing with his eyes to the hidden cameras. “Follow me somewhere we can.”

The drive out to the cabin is long, but it gives Alex time to think. His head is still pounding, and Kyle follows so close behind that any sudden stop would send him crashing into Alex’s rear bumper, but the silence is refreshing. He goes over everything in his mind, searching out the flaw. The pieces of this are too jumbled and irregular to fit together. That means he’s missing something.

All that he doesn’t know has started to pile up, threatening to crush him under the weight of the unknown.

The key for this cabin has sat heavy in his pocket, since his return to Roswell. He parks sideways across the grass, leaving enough room for Kyle to fit behind him.

It looks the same as when they were kids. A bit neglected from lack of use over the past few years, but otherwise untouched. Nostalgia pulls Alex’s lips into a half smile.

“Hasn’t changed a bit.” Kyle says, coming up to his side.

“Is it the only thing?” He asks, not waiting for Kyle to follow up the steps.

“Okay, that’s the fair.” Kyle takes the steps two at a time to watch over Alex’s shoulder as he slips the key into the lock. “I’m sorry, by the way. I was a real dick when I was sixteen.”

Alex gives Kyle a once-over, brows pulling up skeptically. “You were.” That surprises a laugh out of him, and Alex flashes a quick, sharp grin.

The door opens on silent hinges, and it’s like stepping back in time as they pass over the threshold. It smells the same as he remembers - that musty scent, dirt caked into floorboards, old wood creaking under his boots. The furniture is ancient, older than him and Kyle, lumpy and wobbling on uneven legs.

Kyle is wandering around, trailing fingers over surfaces, seemingly lost in a scene out of the past. Normally, Alex would give him a moment, but it’s been a long day, the sun already brushing the tops of the trees, and he needs some answers.

“How’d my dad pull you into this?” He sits himself in the airchair, stretching his legs out.

“I found him, actually.” Kyle turns to face Alex, leaning against one of the bookcases and crossing arms over his chest. “Liz Ortecho. She’s back in town.” His smile is indulgent. “And managed to get herself shot then magically healed in one night.”

“Wow,” Alex says, and his eyebrows climb up his forehead again. “I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting that.”

“She had a little souvenir from it. A glowing handprint,” Kyle lays his right palm above his left pec, the same spot Michael had touched earlier on Alex’s body, “right here.” He shrugs, dropping his hand. “At the end, my dad kept mumbling about finding Master Sergeant Manes if a glowing handprint showed up. I thought it was the tumor, but.” He trails off, eyes glazing over.

“Aliens.”

“Yeah,” Kyle shakes his head, unbelieving. “So do you trust him?”

“Not an inch of my body trusts Jesse Manes.” Alex stares Kyle down.

“Right.” Kyle claps his hands. “So, what do we do?”


End file.
